What is the difference between " how long , how long ago"?

Question

1) How long has the company existed. 2) How long ago has the company existed.Are both of them referred to " duration" ? what are the differences?Thanks alot

Avangi · Accepted Answer

napoleonponapa1) How long has the company existed.
2) How long ago has the company existed.

Are both of them referred to " duration" ? what are the differences? Only the first example refers to duration.
The second one is ungrammatical.
"How long ago did the company exist?" This refers to a point in time.

If the company is known to be no longer in existance, it would be appropriate to answer with an approximation, or a statement about some particular time when it was known to exist.

If the company is generally understood to have been in existance for some unspecified time, but up to and including the present, then the questioner would be understood to be inquiring about the origin of the company.

This wouldn't prevent someone from answering, "To the best of my knowledge, it's been around for centuries."

The question, "How old is this company?" would usually refer to a company still in existance, but in some contexts could refer to one no longer in business.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

"Ago" refers to a point in past time - e.g. 3 years ago, a week ago, many moons ago. These expressions are not intervals.
"Ago" is used with simple past. Past perfect implies a range of time, but "ago" does not.

So consider these 2 instead:

1) How long has the company existed? - This implies that the company exists today. The question is "For how long has it been in existence?" If the company was founded in 2000, the answer would be 9 years.

2) How long ago did the company exist? - This implies that the company does not exist now. The question is "When was the company in business?" The answer can be a range of time (from 1980-2003) or a point in time when it existed - (e.g. It existed as late as 6 years ago.). the question is a bit vague.

Napoleonponapa · Answer

Thanks alot

But if " How long ago did the company exist" is the point in time, the answers would be like 3 years ago, in 2000, etc. how can the answers be " for centuries" becuase " for centuries " refers to duration.

Thanks

AlpheccaStars · Answer

The question is grammatically OK, but ambiguous.
Let's take an example:

How long ago did Barings Bank exist?

Well, the bank collapsed in Feb. 1994 (one of their 20-something employees caused it), and the bank was established in 1761. The question asks - At what point in time did the bank exist?
It is difficult to answer, because there are 233 answers - one answer for each year. The person might answer "It existed as long ago as 1761" or
"It existed as recently as 1994."

The moral is: don't ask such questions unless you deliberately want to be vague and confusing.

Avangi · Answer

What is the difference between "how long, how long ago"?

napoleonponapaBut if " How long ago did the company exist" is the point in time, the answers would be like 3 years ago, in 2000, etc. how can the answers be " for centuries" becuase " for centuries " refers to duration.

"How long" is a duration, or an interval. It does not necessarily have anything to do with the present time. "How long did Jonah live in the belly of the whale?"
"How long ago" is a point in time, as we have said; but it's always measured from the present time, so it would be futile to deny that there's an interval involved.

It's not a crime to give an unambiguous answer to an ambiguous question.
The reply, "It's been around for centuries" makes a fresh start, rejecting the form of "How long ago did the company exist?"
Both concepts involve measuring the interval between the present and some point in the past.

"Where's John?" (reply) "He got off the bus a few miles back."
Are we talking about an interval or a point?
We're talking about a point which is located by an interval - the interval between our present location and the point where John got off the bus.

"It has been around for centuries" is quite different from "It had been around for centuries." The first expression measures time from the present. The second measures time from some unspecified point in the past.

What is the difference between " how long , how long ago"?

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